moradabad-e-waste

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) is a public
interest research and advocacy organisation based in
New Delhi. The Centre researches into, lobbies for and
commu nicates the urgency of development that is both
sustainable and equitable.
The scenario today demands using knowledge to bring about
change. In other words, working India’s democracy. This is what
we aim to do.
The challenge, we see, is two-pronged. On one hand, millions live
within a biomass-based subsistence economy, living at the
margins of survival; the environment is their only natural asset.
But a degraded environment means stress on land, water and
forest resources for survival. It means increasing destitution and
poverty.
The opportunity to bring about change is enormous. But it will
need a commitment to reform – structural reform – in the way we
do business with local communities.
On the other hand, rapid industrialisation is throwing up new
problems – growing toxification and a costly disease burden. The
answers will be in reinventing the growth model of the Western
world so that we can leapfrog technology choices and find new
ways of building wealth, which will not cost us the earth. This is
the challenge of the balance.
Our aim is to raise these concerns and to participate in seeking
answers and more importantly, in pushing for the answers
to become policy and then practice. We do this through our
research and by communicating our understanding through our
publications. We call this knowledge-based activism. We hope we
will make a difference.
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